Category: Internet (Page 32 of 40)

“AOL is making progress, it says. Its spam software filter blocks 2 billion unsolicited commercial e-mails a day, or 80% of the messages aimed at subscribers.”

I’m not sure which of those numbers frightens me more.

I read this page and suddenly I want to live in Portland.

Netwer.com.

I resigned my position as a columnist for Digital Web Magazine today.

I resigned my position as a columnist for Digital Web Magazine today.

For several months my column has been more or less dormant, not unlike this Web site. I have been trying to understand why.

~ Maybe it’s my life and the happy complications of business school.

~ Maybe it’s my job, at which I have been more hands-on than contemplative in recent months, forcing me to learn the nuances of CSS rather than ruminate about the ramifications of using it.

~ Maybe it’s the rather stale nature of Web site design in general. The most recent topic I tried writing was, “Why is the push for standards the only hot

topic in the design community?” I also have a column in my head (likely written elsewhere by now) wondering, “Why do we talk about weblogs so much?” That one is so big it’s hardly worth writing.

The Web design industry has matured. The two largest issues facing online purveyors today are clarifying code for future iterations and making money to keep the future bright. Neither of these issues requires much more discussion than already exists.

My creative juices have flowed into schoolwork and my other keyboard of late—I lead the class rock band at school. Working on chords instead of clauses has been refreshing.

Frankly, there’s not much incentive for me to think about Web publishing on a macro level at the present time. I have three roles in life:

• Create quality output for my employer
• Create quality output for my study group and professors
• Create a happy home

Make your own hot headlines with the CNN fake news generator. (This may be an old page but it’s new to me, and the cnn.com wrapper is up to date, too. Not bad.)

Boxes and Arrows: Printing the Web. “Computers are good for storing information, but generally bad for using it. Research shows that difficulty in reading from a computer screen stems from poor resolution: compared to paper, monitors—even of the highest quality—offer only low-resolution reading.”

Minor Ideapad alteration today: the date/posted-to line of an item, previously beneath the headline, has relocated to the end of the body text.

Astute readers of this page (hi, Mom) will notice a slight stylistic change today: The date/posted-to line of each entry on the index page, previously beneath the headline, has relocated to the end of the item.

Why? Two reasons:

1. Editorially, the date was getting in the way of the reading of an item. I disliked the interruption between headline and body text when leading into a link or a brief item. The date is less relevant than the previous layout said it was.

2. Visually, the datestamp provides a footer to an item, making a clean break before the next one and allowing me to lessen the whitespace between entries.

If my hunch is correct, reading items will be easier and the text will pack a little more punch. (No promises on lessening the use of cliches.)

Mark Pilgrim: “In 1996, I had my entire apartment wired with X-10 devices … [controlled with] Speakable Items. ‘Connie, I’m home’ would turn on the lights, the air conditioner, and the stereo, check my email, and read me summaries of my unread mail. ‘Connie, goodnight’ would turn off all the lights and appliances, turn on the hall light, say ‘Dream not of today,’ and put the computer to sleep. I am not in the slightest way making this up.”

Mark Pilgrim’s rant against misguided W3C decisions on XHTML impresses me not for its content (do what I do, buddy, and stick lazily with Transitional) but for the sheer quantity of its referral links, which Mark tracks with a nifty home-grown system.

I Know Something You Don’t Know on Defective Yeti. “It would be cool if, at the end of Return of the King when Sauron finally gets the ring, they played I Got The Power by Snap, and Sauron could dance around and do the rap part (“it’s gettin’ kinda hectic!”) and then be all like, ‘BOOYAH! It your face, hobbits!!'”